One of the attractions in coming to stay in Singapore for a few years was the ease with which we could travel to countries that we’d only ever read about in books or seen on television. Earlier in December we spent 10 days travelling around Japan. We’ve now been back for a week and I’ve finally sorted through all of the photos, so I can finally get round to writing a blog post about our trip.
We flew into Tokyo Narita Airport and caught the Narita Express Train to Shinjuku where we were staying in the Best Western Hotel. Shinjuku is the very busy, very brightly lit area of Tokyo that is said to have been the inspiration for Blade Runner.
The bright lights of Shinjuku
In contrast to the bright lights and hustle of Shinjuku we spent our first day looking round the gardens of the Imperial Palace in Tokyo. You can’t get access to the palace proper, as the Emperor still lives there, except for New Years day.
Nijubashi Bridge, Imperial Palace Tokyo
The gardens and grounds were very peaceful, a real oasis from the noise of the city. On our second day we travelled to the Harajuku area of Tokyo. Harajuku is famous for two things: the Meiji Shrine and the teenagers who dress up for Cosplay, rock and roll dancing, and other strange outfits.
Nicky at the Meiji Shrine
The shrine was very busy with people coming to pay their respects and offer prayers. We were fortunate that there were a number of traditional Shinto weddings taking place while we were visiting.
Traditional Bride and Groom
In a very Japanese contrast to this, just round the corner in Yoyogi Park, there was all modern Japanese youth culture on display.
Japanese Rockabilly Gang
The park was also full of all sorts of other activities such as sports groups, drama rehearsals, photography sessions, artists, musicians, and children doing their homework. For our final day in Tokyo we went round the bay to the Tokyo Sea Life Park. There’s not much to say about this, other than it was up to usual high standards you’d expect.
Tokyo Big Wheel
Our next stop was the city of Kyoto, but to get there we had to brave the Tokyo subway at the tail end of rush hour and then catch the Shinkansen (Bullet train) to Kyoto.
Shinkansen Hikari
I have to say that the Japanese rail system lived up to all our expectations: fast, punctual, clean. They even managed to make Mount Fuji make an appearance for us.
Mount Fuji
Kyoto is the historical capital of Japan so it’s full of temples. We spent an entire day walking round the city viewing different temples.
Kinkaku-ji - the Golden Temple
To-ji
After Kyoto we travelled on to Hiroshima. Sadly Hiroshima is most famous for the atomic bomb that was detonated at 8:15am on August 6th 1945. The city has been completely rebuilt so you would be hard pushed to understand how completely devestated everything was. In the centre of the city there is a Peace Park with the remnants of a building that was 270 metres from the hypocentre – the A-Bomb Dome. There’s also an excellent museum that details both the bombing itsself and the aftermath.
A-Bomb Dome
Our final day in Hiroshima was spent looking round the castle that was destroyed in the bombing, but rebuilt in 1958.
Hiroshima Castle
Of course we took hundreds of photos and I’ve uploaded a selection the gallery:
